Time Dancer (7 page)

“Change?” He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They nearly glow. I thought it...well, I’ve seen you work spells before. They glow then too, so I never really thought...”

The skin on her hands wasn’t lily-smooth. Kya was not a pampered lady. She worked for her coin, preferring to use her wits and her strength rather than earn it on her back as so many women would have. Warric had been her first lover and it was a gift he treasured more than all the jewels in the crown. That firm hand stroked up his bare spine.

“Warric, please. Talk to the castle healer. Maybe this one will know more. I’m worried. Headaches are one thing but this... I’m frightened for you. Maybe your moth—”

“No!” Volume he hadn’t intended echoed and she cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. No. Mama can’t help with this. I’ll figure it out on my own. Trust me, please, Kya.”

She cupped his cheek. The jabbing pain in his skull lessened under her touch and he pressed a kiss to her palm. He asked for her trust and she gave it when he hadn’t the first clue what might be wrong with him. The thought humbled him.

Using his mind, he snuffed the candle and took her mouth, lowering her to the mattress. Her lips opened under his and he whispered into her kiss, “I just need you. You’re my healer, Kya. Heal me.”

* * *

“Wake. You are safe, my charge.” Darach’s voice echoed in the quiet room with the cadence of falling rain. This time he hadn’t touched her but stood at the foot of her bed. “What did you dream?”

Gooseflesh erupted along her skin and she turned, hiding her face in the pillow. Giving words to the dreams had always made them worse. She’d stopped talking about them long ago, trying to rob them of the power they held over her. But Darach said her dreams held everything.

Her trembling fingers pushed back the blanket. “Will you stoke the fire? I need the light to be able to talk about it.”

In seconds it seemed, the fireplace cast bright light into the room. Firelight loved him. It caressed the contours of his face with flickering fingers. She fisted her hands and wrapped her arms around her waist to hide their shaking. She would give him no more cause to think she was weak.

“There’s nothing there. Only blackness. Cold, empty black. But there are voices. Hundred and hundreds, talking, crying, screaming, laughing.” A shudder worked loose from her spine.

“Darkness and voices frighten you? They are harmless.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. Deeply instilled fear coiled up her spine. Her shoulders drew back with a cleansing breath. “It reminds me of the Abyss. Do you know what that is?”

He shook his head.

“The Abyss is... Only the most evil are banished there after death. It’s the other side of life but not the happy place where your family waits. It’s cold, black emptiness until the dead come for you, drag you into the pits of fire and spend eternity torturing your spirit. There’s no relief from the pain.”

“And the voices you hear? That makes you think these dead souls are searching for you?”

“They never stop screaming and I can’t run from them.”

“You need to run toward them, my charge.”

“Toward them? Into the Abyss?” She gaped. “No.”

“What you hear is not the dead calling, not as you believe. It is not your Abyss. You must go to them if we are to undo this curse.”

“What curse?”

“A gift turned curse. One that weakened every generation until all that is left of a once-proud bloodline stands within these walls.”

“The heartmate bonds?” She rubbed her forehead. “How does that threaten the crown? It can’t plot murder.”

“No, it cannot, but the two are tied in some way,” Darach agreed. “You have a magic you have not yet touched, my charge. It calls to you in your dreams.”

“They’re just nightmares.”

“The Segur blood sings to you when the blood of others makes you ill. The darkness calls out to you in your slumber. You see backward, what has already been. Only you felt compelled to seek magic as a guide to aid your prince. You knew it could be no other, that only you could do this. What does that sound like, my charge?”

Her head shook frantically. Fear heaved in her chest, and her fist curled tight. Darach must be mistaken. He had to be. She struggled to find her voice but her throat constricted too tightly. Something ominous rang in his voice, something terrifying that sounded like the truth. Not even the roaring fire crackling in the fireplace could dispel the sudden cold that circled the room.

Darach’s voice echoed though it was barely above a whisper. “You, Jana Haruk, are one who comes once in a millennium. You are a time dancer.”

He was insane. Something had gone wrong during the summoning call and he’d arrived with no common sense whatsoever.

“Time dancers are a myth.” Jana tugged the blankets to her neck, as if cotton and wool could protect her from his words. “They have the same status as dragons or the sandman. Things that aren’t real.”

“They are real,” Darach disagreed. “Very rare, like a diamond along a riverbed, but real. They travel backward through time, usually through their dreams.”

“You’re wrong. You must be.”

“I am not wrong.” The iron conviction in his stance never rippled. “You can dance through time. We should begin.”

“What?”

“Now, in a small, controlled line, I would like you to go backward and see what has been.”

Her hands felt for the mattress blindly, unable to look away from his face. “I don’t know how.”

“Jana.” His words were gravelly with the rasp of intimacy. “We are faith-bound, forged with tears. You must trust me for this to succeed.”

“I do,” she insisted.

“Do you? You will be the vessel on this journey and I a mere passenger there to aid you. But you must trust me. If you do not, we could both be lost to the ripples of time.”

“What do you mean lost?”

“Think of time as a river. It flows one way but leaves a mark where it has been. That river has currents and depths, periods of calm and turbulence. To plow into it recklessly would be foolish. I will guide you, the vessel, but you must trust that I know the way. As you need me, I need you. Neither boat nor oarsman can traverse the changing waters alone.”

The room faded away. Nothing existed except for his words and the growing magic between them. A magic that stemmed not from earth, not from fire and not from wind, but from blind faith. Jana had to believe he would show her how to be this thing. If she didn’t, all was lost.

“I’ll try but I have butterflies in my stomach.”

“Butterflies? You ingested insects?”

Her laugh rang out and she clamped a hand over her mouth to catch it. “No. It’s an expression. It means...” Those butterflies performed a loop when he faced her. “It means I’m scared.”

“Do not fear. I will be with you.”

He took her hand in his, turning it palm up. His right hand lowered and slid into his glove. Jana held her breath as he pointed one finger, one clawed finger, toward the center. She winced but the pain was short lived. A single dot of blood welled. Her stomach lurched.

“This is your constant, the record of your history, your bloodline. All that you are and every generation has been is held within this drop. This shall be our map.”

The tiny crimson droplet held her eyes. Slowly the dizziness left and an undercurrent of power swelled, a magic song she’d been too scared to hear before. “It’s so small.”

“But powerful. Now sleep.”

She tugged her hand away. “I just woke up.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Your powers are strongest while at rest. As a bear hibernates in the winter, I carry the gift of dormancy. I can give you the depths of dreamland in an instant.”

Jana fingered the cotton sheet with her clean hand. “Then what do I do?”

“I will call to you. Focus on me, on bringing me into your dream world. Once there, I can guide you.”

Keeping the tiny spot of blood steady, she slid beneath the blankets, let him tuck them around her and then watched him. He paced, shrugging his shoulders, flexing his arms, loosening his muscles. Argot did much the same when he was preparing to spar with another soldier. She slid her ringed hand beneath the coverlet.

Darach stopped with his eyes closed. A stillness wove into the chamber, silence but with an unheard pulse that vibrated through her. With the breath held tight, he opened his eyes. They shimmered with magic. He sank to one knee beside her bed and held out his hand.

Her fingers trembled but she placed them in his. It should feel strange, this man who wasn’t quite a man holding her hand while she was in bed, but numbness had stolen into her skin. Strong, lean fingers laced with hers, the small blood smear wet between them.

He blew into her face and the scent of minty winter blanketed her. The darkness came.

Black.

Nothing but black.

Echoing, empty, cold black.

Jana whirled, searching for light, searching for a sound, anything. There were no walls, no air, nothing, yet something heavy pressed against her, something thick and damp. Invisible fog. Fright skittered along her skin. She thrust her hand up before her face. but she couldn’t see it.

Fear sent a bitter wash into her throat. She was alone in the darkness. Voices exploded around her, hundreds, thousands, all talking at once. She clamped her hands over her ears to block the roar.

His whisper broke through them all. “
Call
for
me
,
Jana
.”

Terror paralyzed her. The echoes grew, pounding inside her head, in her chest, in her blood. They bounced off unseen walls and hit her from all sides. A scream worked from her throat but it was lost beneath the cries and calls of people she couldn’t see.

“
My
name
,
Jana
.
Use
my
name
and
draw
me
to
you
.” Rich and powerful, even in a whisper, his voice soothed her.

“H-help, p-please.” So cold. So dark. So empty. So loud. Fright ripped all sanity from her mind. “Please, oh God, please, help me.”

“
Jana
!” The power behind his words were a mental slap. “
Use
my
name
and
command
me
.
Time
bows
to
you
.
Master
it
.”

She had to believe him. Faith-bound, he claimed them. Pinching her eyes tight, she blocked out the voices and summoned him. “I call Darach, my guide. Come to me. Show me the path I need to take.”

In the darkness, he took her hand. She gripped his, digging her nails in, feeling the harsh calluses. He was so solid. Blind and panicky, she clung to his neck. “I’m scared.”

He wrapped his arms around her. One hard palm stroked her spine in an oddly hesitant but soothing caress. He was more than warm. Intense heat washed through her. A granite jaw pressed against her temple and, if she could have trusted her terrified mind, she would have sworn she felt him smile.

His voice, that decadent growly voice, bathed her cheek in a private whisper. “I am here, my charge. I will always come when you call.”

“It’s so dark.”

Firm fingers lifted her chin. “Call the light.”

“I can’t.” Her mind was blank.

“You can. You have all the power in this world. It is your dream, control it.”

Sapping strength from his embrace and calm from his faith, she nodded. Calling light was the first lesson all children were taught at the Endicort Academy. She had struggled with it but she’d learned it, even if she hadn’t used it in ages.

“
Like
a
sun
,
like
a
star
,

Come
near
from
afar
.

Light
hear
and
light
obey
.

Come
and
do
as
I
say
.

Banish
the
black
.”

A muted light from no source sprang around them. She blinked as her eyes adjusted, using his face as a focus. There was a smile on his lips, a gentle one full of pride. How could so hard a man have lips that looked soft as satin? Would they feel like satin?

He stepped back and squeezed her hand. “Hold fast to me, Jana. We must not part.”

“It’s so loud.”

“Listen. One voice will stand out. Focus on it. There is one who will rise above.”

Jana tried but they were all so deafening. Overlapping. Rapid. It hurt to listen. Then, above the cacophony, a single woman’s voice broke through. Jana had never heard it but recognized it somehow. “I hear one.”

“Open to it, let it grow.”

She let the voice rush into her mind. The others drifted away, fell silent as she listened to only one. Nothing existed in the void except Darach, her and the call of a woman. He took a step back and she followed. They moved as one, as they would on a dance floor, keeping time with the distant conversation. The darkness faded to twilight. It filled with soft fire glow. The last step flooded her vision with color.

It was her father’s bedchamber, but not as she knew it. The furniture was in the wrong places and the bed different. This one was shorter than she recalled. On the bed, her sweat-drenched shift bunched around her swollen belly, a blonde woman struggled in the final stages of childbirth. The damp gold hair stuck to her cheeks, and lines of pain carved around her mouth.

“It doesn’t feel right,” the woman panted.

“Again, milady, hard!” Between her widespread thighs knelt an elderly woman working at something Jana couldn’t see.

The blonde tucked her chin to her chest, gripped her bare knees and bore down. Her slender neck showed cords tight with the strain. The muscles in her legs quaked. She tossed back her head and screamed. “Bryton!”